Monday Haiku and what I learned this weekend – 21 July 2012

Spiderman must you be so cheap that I have to supply the ice? What’s next, Firestar lighting the BBQ?

This weeks weekend relevant prompts for Monday Haiku are:

Santa Ana Zoo - We live in Orange County, California. We popped down to Santa Ana Zoo on Saturday morning. It’s only a small zoo with monkeys, parrots, camels, ant eaters, and various farm animals, but is nicely laid out with plenty of shady spots. Perfect for walking a toddler around.

Strawberry overload – I tend to eat a load of strawberries every weekend, but this weekend, a store we regularly shop at had them at 86 cents a box. So strawberry overload it is then.

First LFC friendly - First pre-season friendly for Liverpool FC. First with the new manager who favours a more spanish flavour possession style game, which I love. Not all the players are back yet as many featured in the recent EURO championships, so many young players got a chance to shine. The game was against Toronto, and the final score was 1 – 1. The score was not important as re-season is as much about fitness, and I enjoyed watching the new style.

So here we go:

Santa Ana Zoo

Meet anteater and monkey

do not wonder why

Which sort of occurred to me before, but not enough to give it much thought.

natural sugar high

in strawberry overload

just as sweet as me

Now I have nothing to moan about for a few days:

Positive pass play

out possess the other team

players good enough?

Bonus Haiku was going to give Carrie Rubin’s family a break again this week until she put keyboard type to post with “A post of offal“. Hmm, what’s a poor bonus haiku, living off the skimping weekend morsels of Elliot’s mind to do? Oh well. Pointless disclaimer says there might be some naughty words so if offended jump over the dotted lines below, or alternatively, if enticed, like an Elliot to an unopened box of toffee, jump between the dotted lines below. If however you are like an Elliot caught between a tub of ice-cream, and a box of belgian chocolate (not that soapy tasting Hershey stuff), then just hover here for a while whilst you figure out how to get between the lines and over them in one go:

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Carrie’s sunday lunch

Mr Rubin says to sons

What do I look like?

part 2:

One thing dad, your head

looks just like a vagina

Quiet lunch next week

Not so “Super” bonus part 3 (with apologies to Mr Rubin):

summer school awaits

please hold, for Brain splats pardon

must use for Haiku

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Things I learned this weekend:

Bonus Haiku could have been a bit too vulgar musing about why a head may look like erm, see above, but it is about fun, (and not being too rude about Mr Rubin) so I rewrote it all.

I wasn’t keen on the way this weekends (well friday mornings) cinema shooting was consistantly described as an “unspeakable event”, whilst actually being discussed. Huh? It was bad, but it was not the work of terrorists, it was pretty much an isolated event of a madman, or however you want to describe him. There ought to be some serious discussion about gun control and one or two other issues, but these are ongoing discussion points, not something for everyone to dive in on, with knee jerk reactions. At least leave it a week or two once things settle down a bit. That way there can be discussion without the knee-jerk reaction, which is the way it should be (in my opinion).

My boy currently likes the animals at the Zoo, but waterfalls / water features a little bit more.

He also knows spiderman already. The 80’s spiderman with Iceman and Firestar is on netflix streaming.

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26 thoughts on “Monday Haiku and what I learned this weekend – 21 July 2012”

Commenting on your appraisal of the cinema shooting event, I couldn’t agree more. Funny, how when one of these things occur, out come the Facebook picures depicting that “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people”, I respectfully (no, forget the respect) decline to agree. People who are allowed to buy guns kill people. I can’t even watch the stuff on TV about it, because it makes me so mad, and because I get so tired of interviewing the victims’ first grade teachers, and the perpetrator’s next door neighbor. And please, let’s not give this a**hole his moment of glory by flashing his name ad picture all over. He killed 13, now someone will have to do more than that. It’s disgusting, putrid “news”.

I liked what you said about chocolate. I walked around a cute little candy store in Whittlesey, East Anglia one time, and I thought I would never leave.

Great post today! I enjoyed the mixture of thoughtfulness of taking your son to the zoo, gun control, and the humor in your bonus Haikus. There is nothing wrong with vulgar humor. Sometimes it is needed to break the tension. I know my husband would enjoy it.

I really liked your story and Haiku about the strawberries. I can relate. My son loves them.

Thank you for sharing the highlights of your weekend and making me laugh!

Well, Ms. Schneider, I disagree about the guns part–people will kill people regardless. Most gun owners are responsible individuals. More controls aren’t the answer. The way we live our lives seems more concerning to me. I do agree about not giving this person a moment of glory. He’s sick. And digging up useless bits of information to keep the news going isn’t helpful. It’s senseless and a tragedy. That’s all I have to say here about what has happened in my home state.

I got a big kick out of your haiku Elliot. And just for the record, I am a huge strawberry fan–but ours here cost twice as much as yours! Waah! Glad you had a fun day at the zoo with your little man. What a fun family day. :)

I would hope that a gun owner being responsible is the minimum requirement given it is a weapon to kill. Moving from a country where it is not legal to own a gun, to one where in many states it is, does give me an uneasy feeling. Of course most owners are no threat at all, but it does give the idiots easier access to a killing machine when they do want to cause bother. That doesn’t stop idiots causing bother. But it does make it more serious when they do. There is no recent history of gun shootings in UK schools, or attempted assassinations of political figures. So in this sense there ought to be more discussion on gun ownership.

That aside, the monday Haiku is fun as always. The strawberries are not normally that cheap, usually around $3. The zoo was nice but we couldn’t manage all day because of the heat.

After the horrible shootings Friday night, a week-end of near non-stop editing, and a two day tryst with the flu (while doing said editing), I needed a good laugh this morning. As soon as I saw your Trackback on my blog, I had to come over here. You did not disappoint. I was worried my last “offal” might be too much for your Haiku, but I’m delighted to see it wasn’t. And believe me, Mr. Rubin will find it hilarious when he gets back with the boys today (the good man took them to a water park for two days so I could edit). So thanks for having a sense of humor about the silly stuff and sharing it with us. :)

As for your strawberry overload? I think your next bonus Haiku may have to focus on how “regular” you surely must be after eating all that fruit. :)

Well the first version was a bit extreme, and I didn’t want it to sound offensive to you and your family, so I toned it down a bit. But I’m glad you liked it. The “bonus” haiku is just about daft stuff so it was ideal.

Alternatively the two part strawberry overload would have worked as a bonus haiku, had I thought of the part two.

Very well. I finished, and now I want to read through the whole manuscript one last time. Then I’ll send it off. The only thing that remains after that (I think) are the line edits, which are just for typos and such. Thanks for asking. :)

Some print. Mostly ebook. :) And any hope of getting it into a bookstore will be in my own hands; which basically means soliciting my local bookstores with a handful of print copies. It’s an e-publisher with POD only.

I would normally agree with your opening statement but I have to watch the calories :)

The gun control is a tough one. It is seen as a right over here, although anything which could be taken away often is. Coming from the UK where it is not legal, I would say ban them, but this is a big country and I don’t live everyones lives, or have everyones needs to kill things. Hence thoughtful discussion ought to take place.

My personal view is ban the guns. And, since we don’t live in a vacuum, thoughtful discussion. If you’re inclined, check out today’s broadcast of Democracy Now (www.democracynow.org) which includes viewpoints of people who have experienced this type of situation and have the perspective of time to share with us.

I walked in the other day and my wife had the show on for my son. I said “oh, that is iceman and firestar”. She said “I cannot believe you knew who that is”. – Well I used to watch the show a lot when I was a child (of the 80s).